


From Minder to Friend to Lover (to Heart)

by AngeNoir



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Age Difference, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Multi, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Suicidal Thoughts, Threesome - F/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-19
Updated: 2015-04-19
Packaged: 2018-03-24 16:43:02
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,164
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3775927
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AngeNoir/pseuds/AngeNoir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hermione knew, she <em>knew</em>, if she let Malfoy's proposal and curious request burrow under her skin, she would be lost.</p><p>She never quite expected it to turn out this way, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	From Minder to Friend to Lover (to Heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lynndyre](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/gifts).



> I hope the format is okay, honestly. I'm not so sure I fulfilled it exactly the way you'd like, but I hope it's okay anyway.

The offer that started this all, she didn’t really expect it.

She and Ron had been on the outs for a year by that time, Hermione working her tail off as she forced her way to be better, work harder, get that foot in the door she needed to step into the old-boy’s-club of pureblood politics. It had been a long day, working as a low-level office drone as she fought to keep from dying of boredom. She had so many ideas, so much enthusiasm, and it all seemed to peter out, die down. Harry was… away, a lot. He rarely hung around the Ministry all that much, out in training and whatever. Ron as well, and long nights with little reward didn’t really get to her, but having that same outcome over and over…

Anyway, she hadn’t expected it. She had been in her little cubicle, stuffing papers into her knapsack and preparing to walk out the lobby, when an elegant cane stopped just on the edges of her sight.

She looked up to see Lucius Malfoy standing a respectful distance away.

“And what do you want?” she asked, too tired to summon any kind of energy in her voice or tone.

Malfoy tilted his head at her. “I come to give you a… proposal, if I may.”

“You may _not_.” Hermione latched the knapsack with a decidedly unsatisfying click and stood up.

“You didn’t even hear me out,” Malfoy said mildly.

That was what started this.

 

\- - -

 

She breathed out, a soft liquid sigh, then caught on a moan. There was a deep chuckle, and then she gasped, chest arching as she gripped her fists tightly in one of her lovers’ hair. It was fine, silky, and she wondered where her other one was. He was the focus of tonight, after all. It was his requests they were trying to fulfill, his care they were seeing to tonight.

Not that she could think so clearly, not when her hips were rocking under Lucius’s skillful tongue. Instead, she sucked in her breath, thighs quivering, and her free hand slid over the silk sheets, looking for her other lover, looking for Severus, when Lucius caught her hand and pulled it back to her thigh. He hummed against her clit, sucked and then moved away, and she thrashed her hair against the pillows and whined in the back of her throat, fighting to reach that completion just yet.

 

\- - -

 

“I don’t see why you think he needs a minder, of all things,” she huffed.

“You need something to do to destress – someone to yell at, someone you feel absolutely justified yelling at. He needs someone to yell at him.” Malfoy spread his hands, looking about the practically empty office. “All I’m asking for is two hours of your day where you make sure he hasn’t terrified another one of my house-elves into a quivering mess.”

“What’s your angle?” she said suspiciously. “What’s the catch?”

Malfoy shook his head. “No catch. Just – someone to remind him that he’s still alive.”

Hermione lifted an eyebrow skeptically as she stepped into the lift. “Really? No catch at all?”

Malfoy smiled – probably in a way he thought was reassuring. It made him look like a snake, lying in wait. It made him look charming, personable.

It made her curious, dammit, and she already knew she was going to try this, at least.

“For three days a week, you want me to spend two hours visiting the little cottage where you stuck Snape and – what, converse with him?”

“You could read magical tomes or make potions for all I care. You can yell at him and demand answers. Anything to – well. Anything at all, within reason of course. I can’t very well have you cursing him, or harming him.”

Hermione made a face as she stepped out of the lifts. “Why me? Why now?”

“Truthfully… truthfully, I am running out of options for him. I need someone with a strong personality, someone with a good enough heart to wish to spare someone in pain further suffering. I need someone who was never intimidated by him – and that alone narrows the list quite considerably.” Malfoy smiled and—

It was a small smile. A private, almost personal smile, one she had never seen on his face before. It made her suddenly see the softness in his face, the lines of weariness across his brow and pinching his eyes. He looked younger, somehow.

She turned away and lengthened her stride a little more than necessary. “Send the arrangements to me by post.  I can start tomorrow, if you wish. Trial basis only.”

“Of course. My deepest thanks, Ms. Granger.”

She had known, then, that this would suck her in. That it would draw her in too deep, too quickly, and she wouldn’t be able to get out. She had a penchant for lost cases, for the ones who didn’t want her help no matter how much she wanted to help them. She knew that Lucius had lost Narcissa a year or two ago, that Snape had been a recluse ever since Malfoy got him acquitted and released from custody. She knew that her classmate, Draco, had thrown himself into a job – something that Lucius was unhappy about but didn’t stop.

All this, however, was office gossip, hearsay. Working in the Ministry, even if it was her steps towards making working conditions better for house-elves, meant she was privy to all bits of information that witches and wizards seemed infinitely interested in repeating and adjusting and then repeating it again. She had heard a lot about many former Death Eaters, quite a few former classmates, some others she knew tangentially though not personally. She didn’t participate, but she would be hard pressed to say that she ignored those social undercurrents. If there was one thing she had learned about the wizarding world, it was that they were dead-set on keeping up appearances and making good impressions regardless of what lay underneath.

The Malfoys had been a respected pillar of the wizarding community, to a feared pillar of the community, to a now barely-tolerated outsider that was allowed to participate and walk freely because of the deepness of the Malfoy coffers. She didn’t know how true that was, but stepping down the street, mind bent on this new problem presented to her, she was determined to find out.

 

\- - -

 

Bony fingers curled in her wild hair, gripping just the right side of too-tight, and then narrow lips crushed against hers. She let Severus swallow her moan, shivered at the feel of his limbs moving to straddle her body, weigh her down. Lucius did something particularly clever with his tongue and her body arched, hands gripping at Severus’s thighs, feeling the weight of his cock and balls heavy against her sternum and breasts.

“Shh,” Severus whispered, voice loud in the room, and she wished she could see at the same time she loved the feel of it, the thrill of it, the fact that she had that sense denied to her, heightening all the other senses.

Something blunt bumped against her lips and she parted them, taking in the heavy head of Severus’s cock, humming in pleasure at the taste and feel. Somewhere above her, Severus groaned and she could almost imagine him, thin chest arched and head thrown back.

Lucius did something complicated with his tongue and she gasped, the cock suddenly dropping further into her mouth than she expected. She choked, and Severus didn’t let up, kept pressing, and her body arched up in protest and excitement as it fought for air. Finally, Severus pulled back, his head rubbing against her lips.

“We’re almost ready,” Lucius purred, fingers brushing the inside of her thighs, spreading her wide.

She couldn’t wait.

 

\- - -

 

Severus Snape was – a trial.

The first day she went to sit with Snape (Malfoy’s instructions had been vague, no more detailed than ‘keep him company,’ but it paid well and it would give her a cushion if [when] she decided to move out of the stale Ministry and into something she could actually do and change) – well. The first day she went, she ended up leaving early, shouting inventive, snarled insults over her shoulder as she stalked away and Apparated away.

An owl came for her later that day, when she paced the small confines of her flat and muttered to herself. It was the Malfoy owl, the writing ornate and detailed, the parchment heavy and high-quality.

_I understand how trying he can be, perhaps more than you realize. However I need to beg you to reconsider. He was more alive today than he had been in a long while. Please, Ms. Granger, do come tomorrow. If it is a question of money, I will double the agreed-upon salary. If it is a question of taste, you have my every blessing to yell at him again, and again. If you noticed, he is not himself._

_~Lucius Malfoy_

Hermione stared at the parchment and then let out a hissing breath. Snape had insulted her ability, her drive, had called her a child for clinging to outdated systems and values and morals, gripping the apron strings of authority for reassurance.

She had been more frustrated because now, thinking about it…

… He had been fucking _right_.

Snatching a spare bit of parchment, barely large enough to fit even her cramped writing on it, she scribbled back _Our disagreement has not yet been resolved to my satisfaction. I will be there tomorrow. ~Ms. Granger_

The owl took it gravely, and flew away.

All the next day, while at her drudgery at work, and the sniping gossip, and the boring repetitive paperwork – all she could think about was her comebacks to Snape’s cutting remarks. He could lash out as much as he wanted to – she was being paid to come back, to _yell_ back. It wouldn’t get out of her mind, and when the end of the day came she was packing up, ready to leave exactly on time, because Snape was fucking _wrong_ , not right, and she would damn well prove that—

“Ms. Granger?”

She stopped, highly aware of the stares of her coworkers, and blinked at Malfoy. “What are you doing here?” she asked, shocked enough that her voice wasn’t confrontational at all.

“I am simply escorting you to the lifts. Offering a commiserating shoulder.” Malfoy smiled, and it was – rueful. _Real_. “My understanding if you have had time to cool down from yesterday, and have come to your senses in regards to our arrangement.”

“Oh, rest assured, Mr. Malfoy,” she said darkly. “I am committed to this now.”

There was real relief in his face, even as he said dryly, “I’m sure he’ll be thrilled.”

“I daresay he might be,” she said archly, stalking past Malfoy and her stunned coworkers towards the lifts.

 

\- - -

 

Severus’s weight shifted, sliding down her belly, his long fingers wrapping around her upper arms and pinning her shoulders down as his nose brushed her cheekbone. “I hope you’re aware of what you signed up for, Ms. Granger,” he murmured, rich voice curling in her ears.

Her lips curled slightly, and she breathed back, “I can take anything you can dish, Severus.”

His name on her lips had him shuddering, even as he uncoiled his body and settled his hips between hers – Lucius’s hands on her ankles, practically wishboning her open for Severus, taking the decision out of her hands and her hands clenched in the sheets, trying to arch her back and unable to because Severus was holding her shoulders down.

His heavy cock pressed against her belly, thick and sticky and she shivered, shifting as much as she could between the points of Severus’s Lucius’s hands. “Aren’t you going to _do_ anything?” she gasped out, hands jumping out of the sheets to clench at Severus’s ribs, nails digging into his back. “Or are you just going to _sit_ there all night?”

“Someone’s impatient,” Lucius hummed at her feet.

“Come up here, Lucius,” Severus said impatiently.

Those hands left her ankles, and immediately she brought her feet up to bracket Severus’s hips, clenching tight around his waist, pelvis rocking, begging. Severus ignored her, and the bed dipped by her head and then Lucius’s faintly larger hands pressed against her forehead and collarbone.

Severus’s hands pulled away, and then they were roughly shoving her hips wider. She groaned, then screamed when Severus slammed home at the same time that Lucius’s hand went from forehead to fisted in her hair, jerking her chin up and baring her throat. “Oh Merlin,” she whimpered, whined, as Severus started a punishing rhythm that didn’t take her pleasure into account at all.

Lips brushed her ear, and then Lucius’s easy drawl curled in her ears, in her _brain_. “He’s using you, a doll to be fucked. Your pleasure, your desires, they mean _nothing_ to him. You are a vessel to unload into, to be used and forgotten, and he’s doing that. Focused so much on his own pleasure, I bet he hasn’t even touched your clit, has he?”

She moaned, barely a no, barely anything at all as she fought to draw in breath, in taking what Severus was hammering, her hands gripping and grasping at Severus’s forearms, trying to reach for something, anything. Her eyesight gone made everything bigger, everything so much _more_.

“When he’s done,” Lucius breathed, “I’m going to slide into you _so_ easily, just press in, take you nice and slow, throw you off, and take my time. I’m going to make you come, time after time, before I even come once. Severus will watch, drained, as I take you as high as I can.”

She groaned as Severus’s thick cock pounded in again, and again, spearing her over and over and just the absolute feel of him, of his body over her, narrow hips pressed against hers, breath harsh and ragged. Lucius’s voice in her ear, Severus’s body up over her, and she came, almost by surprise.

It certainly threw Severus off – his rhythm stuttered, and then he laughed, breathless and a little amazed. “Someone likes that idea,” he gasped, his voice getting to that broken point that meant he was close, and she tightened her pussy, desperately tried to hold him in, and he let out a choked moan.

“If you could feel—” He broke off, head dropping between his shoulders – she could tell, from the hair that brushed against her pebbled nipples, the tight tension in his forearms stabbed into the bed on either side of her ribs, the harsh pants that tickled air over her breasts and upper chest.

“Damn,” he breathed, and his fingers brushed her cheek, the tips trembling, voice weak and stuttered around his breaths. “Beautiful. The perpetual twist in my otherwise logical plans.”

She laughed, high and light, turning her head to lick at the pads of his fingers. “You mean,” she breathed out, voice trembling, “I constantly bring rationale to your self-pitying ways.”

Lucius chuckled. “She has you there, old friend.” He nuzzled at the junction of her shoulder and neck. “My turn,” he breathed, and she couldn’t wait.

 

\- - -

 

She went that day. And the next. And the next.

After two weeks, two weeks of her coworkers sneering at her for being Lucius’s ‘pet’ – because by now, after two weeks of Lucius showing up and walking her to the lifts, sharing letters with her that expressed their shared exasperation with their caustic charge, she felt entirely comfortable with referring to Lucius by first name – she stopped Lucius outside the lift and said, “Come with me today.”

“Why?” he asked, surprised.

“Because he talks about you. Because he feels as if you don’t know what to do with him, and so you’ve foisted him on me. That you washed your hands of him.”

His eyes widened, just a bit, enough that she could see he was shocked for all that he kept most of his emotions gone from his face. “I—”

“Don’t feel that way, I know,” she finished, impatient. “But that’s the impression you’ve given. Do you have something pressing to do right now? Something that would keep you from visiting today?”

“I… do not, Ms. Granger,” he said, and that small bit of hesitation meant she had surprised him, which comforted her slightly. When Lucius was off-balance, he tended to be a lot more honest in his emotions and responses.

“Good. Then come on. I’ll Side-Apparate you.”

He took her hand and she led him into the lift, the doors closing behind them, firmly shutting out her coworkers. Once down and then out of the Ministry, she Side-Apparated him before he could regain his balance or come up with a reason to not come along.

Outside the small cottage, she turned to him and met his gaze.

“What?” he asked.

“He’s suicidal, isn’t he?”

Lucius looked at her, completely stunned, and that pole-axed look was enough to confirm her suspicions.

“Merlin’s balls, why the hell didn’t you take him to a Healer?” she growled.

Lucius, if anything, hunched his shoulders and cleared his throat. “He… would not go. And they don’t – treat former Death Eaters well, in hospitals. My wife died in one. I go to the continent, now, for any treatment I need.”

“Then take him to the continent as well!” she said impatiently. “But I am not a miracle worker. I cannot inspire him to live. Our conversations are involved and yes, I think they help, but until he gets help—”

“You cannot force a horse to drink if it does not want to,” Lucius said, voice tight. “He does not want help. I cannot give it to him, _force_ it upon him, not when so much of his life has been forced one way or the other by impulses not in his control.”

She met his gaze, and part of being in the Ministry, of being a part of this arrangement, meant that she was maturing, understanding. She understood, now, what he meant, and slowly, she inclined her head. “Very well,” she said quietly. “But then we must show him why such help is necessary.”

And with that, she marched on her heel and stormed into the cottage.

Severus looked up from the book he was staring listlessly at, and his eyes gained some small spark of life. “Ms. Granger,” he sneered. “Still throwing your life away on the useless and broken, I see. I would have thought you would come to your sense by now. You used to be a practical child.”

“I am neither child, nor throwing my life away in anything I deem unworthy,” she said tartly, moving through the living room to the small kitchen. “I see your manners are as poor as ever. Not even a pot of water boiling for guests – when you know my arrival time. I brought someone.”

“I felt that,” Severus murmured, staring sightlessly back down at his book. “I can guess who.”

“He’s trying to convince me to visit Malfoy Manor,” she said shortly.

Lucius, who had entered the house and was closing the door, stiffened. “Ms. Granger—” he began, but she knew he would deny it, and right now the point was not to be factually true but to force Severus to acknowledge that pain needed to be healed, otherwise it would remain forever.

“I was tortured, in Malfoy Manor,” she said, and she had… thought she could do this. Talk about it, to help someone else.

Turns out she wasn’t quite there yet, because her voice shook and her motions slowed, stopped, in the middle of her tea preparations. Behind her there was silence.

“I cannot – some nights, I think I am still there. And he would have me step foot in…” She trailed off, trying to imagine herself within those stone walls, that tomb, that trap, and found herself shaking, a warm hand pressed against her shoulder. Lucius, with genuine sorrow and pain in his eyes. Clearing her throat, she pulled away and began to briskly finish making the tea. “I understand, intellectually, that my fear is irrational. I just cannot stop – the instinct.” She tried to keep her voice light, easy.

“You make fun of your pain,” Severus drawled. “You think your pain too pure to be touched by anything dark and broken.”

“My pain is mine, to treat as I will,” she said hotly, turning on her heel.

“You cling to it and mock it in the same breath,” Severus replied, dismissive. “If you truly felt it, you wouldn’t speak it.”

“I would hold it tight to my chest?” she responded in a snarl, aware that he had managed to infuriate her again but too angry to care. “Is that what I would do? Grip it and smother myself with it? I know – I know I need to bleed it out. I just – can’t. Right now.”

“Excuses,” Severus muttered, irritably pushing away the book and glowering at the bookcase on the far wall. “Excuses to justify continued pain.”

She opened her mouth, but Lucius put his hands on her shoulders, gently rubbed. “Thank you for making tea, Ms. Granger.”

“Oh, for Morgana’s sake, you might as well call me Hermione. We know each other well enough, I should hope,” she said restlessly, pulling away from his touch to keep from breaking down against his chest.

Severus remained silent, and Hermione heard Lucius move over to the free chair opposite Severus’s resting spot. “Hello, old friend,” she heard him whisper, and even though she felt scraped raw, even if she had barely been in Severus’s presence for more than a handful of minutes, she wiped her eyes and smiled, because quietly – so quietly she almost couldn’t hear – Severus had replied ‘Hello.’

It became a weekly item, to bring up that Lucius kept asking Hermione to come to his Manor and she kept refusing. It helped her, to speak about the terror she had felt in those dark days, the pain she had felt under the knife, the absolute certainty that she would die and nothing she could do would stop it. And, whether he noticed it or not, Severus began responding. Little by little, inch by inch, she coaxed a story out, _his_ story out. She forced Lucius to accompany her a few more times, until he started visiting as often as she did, and at the same time.

Things were progressing, slowly but surely. Which was when she realized she was watching Lucius’s fingers one late afternoon, Severus’s lips. That she spent more time with two elder men than her friends, now, and that for all that Malfoy was a disgraced name, it still could pull some weight and some respect, because her superiors were starting to pay attention to the small clerk who regularly traveled with Lucius Malfoy.

She began to realize that she could imagine many days like this, even nights. That it would not be hard to stretch afternoons to include whole days.

That she was imagining a life with these two men.

She put in her resignation the very next day. “I cannot come anymore. I have done my best. You need not a minder for him anymore, not at least soon.”

Lucius stared at her, and she tried to tell herself she shouldn’t care if he looked betrayed. “You weren’t just a minder – you were a friend. _Are_ a friend.”

“I must respectfully decline your offer,” she replied again, spine tense and tight, a pulse pounding in her head as she tried to shoo Lucius – well, better start thinking of him as Malfoy again – away. “I am behind in paperwork, in any case.”

Slowly, so slowly, Luci – _Malfoy_ walked away from her desk, and she sat down and tried to ignore the tears welling in her eyes.

 

\- - -

 

She was sore, aching, and couldn’t even muster the energy to do anything at all when Lucius crawled between her trembling thighs and cocked her hips up. “Just beautiful,” he breathed, and his thumb brushed against the outer lip of her cunt. “If you could see yourself.”

She let out a breathless whine, trying to beg for something, anything, or for rest. She got neither – instead, he leaned forward, cock pressed against her thigh, and bracketed her body with powerful arms. “You can’t get away,” he hummed to himself, and the tip of his nose brushed the underside of her chin. Her hands weakly came up, clung to his shoulders. “You can barely move. I’m going to press in nice and slow. Shove Severus’s seed deeper, plant my own. Plow you and show you how slow and steady works. One. Thrust. At. A time,” he breathed, his hips jerking with each word or phrase so that it dragged against sensitive skin, irritated and annoyed and excited. Her breath hitched, and then slim fingers clasped hers, gripped her hand tight, and Severus’s mouth swallowed her whimpers as Lucius pushed in so, so slowly, each move achingly deliberate.

This was unhurried, not the fierce assault of before, and she rolled her body to meet Lucius, begging and pleading, keening her need out as Severus lightly played with her breasts, his breathing returning to normal in her ear. He had a voyeuristic streak, she knew – he liked to watch Lucius fuck her, and then fuck her himself, or watch her prepare to take the both of them at one time, or liked to watch himself take her – and this must have been part of his plan, his fantasy tonight. As it was, Lucius built her up, brought her to the peak and pushed her over, thumb playing over her clit, mouth roving over her sensitive collarbone and around the outside of her breasts, fingers clenched tight against her thighs holding her open and helpless underneath his relentless assault of passion. Once more, she came, and then Lucius’s hips began to pick up speed, and then, only then, did Severus begin to speak.

“Your performance was more than adequate, Ms. Granger,” he murmured, stroking her scalp and pinching her breast. “Little to no decorum, definitely impatient behavior and temperamental responses, but your sensitivity knows no bounds.”

His voice, dry but rich, almost impersonal and yet detailing her arousal in factual detail, had her panting, quivering, and Lucius chuckled haltingly, his thrusts gaining more and more momentum. “She likes being lectured,” he pointed out from her groin, and then he pumped three times more, erratic and jerky, before he let out a gasping cry of her name.

And then, then, Severus’s quick fingers were against the blindfold, removing it so she could see the scratches she had put up and down Lucius’s arms, Severus’s back, see her belly painted and streaked with precum, her breasts reddened from attention, Lucius’s head thrown back and muscles tight in his chest and hips as his seed pulsed inside her. Even as her eyes darted about wildly, trying to drink her fill of the sights, Severus’s long arm snaked down her chest and abdomen to roll once, twice, against her clit.

Then her eyes were shut, voluntarily this time, as she came with a wail, convulsing as her fourth orgasm of the night hit her like a freight train and then dropped her off.

Vaguely she was aware of gentle touches, care, whispered charms to clean her body and clean the sheets, and then the bed dipping as her lovers curled around her from either side. She murmured in appreciation, snuggling between them.

She was so lucky to have them.

 

\- - -

 

It had been Severus who changed her mind.

Severus Snape, who had voluntarily left his cottage, his retreat, and stood awkwardly on the outskirts of her small cubicle as she stared at him in shock.

“You are sorely missed,” he said, words stiff and stilted, and he was so tense, so nervous. Around him, gossip fairly flew, and before she could come up with a good response, with a good reason or way to put Severus off the same way she put Lucius off, she was automatically moving to alleviate his tension – gathering up her papers and bag, enchanting her desk clear and casting her customary locking charms.

“You are out of the cottage,” she murmured as she led him to the most private lift she could find.

He briefly inclined his head. “Lucius has become – insufferable. He is certain he managed to offend you, in some way. But you and I both know that is untrue, is it not?”

Her eyes slid away. “It is the answer Lucius needs.”

“And I? What answer will you give me, to make me leave?”

She bit her lip, trying not to reveal anything on her face. “I’d tell you that you have gotten better – just by being here, you’ve proven you don’t need a minder.”

“I was certain we were friends by now, Miss Hermione.”

She gaped at him, hearing her given name fall from his lips for the first time. After a few undignified moments, the lift doors chimed and she stepped out hurriedly. “Well that’s – certainly true,” she said blankly. “But. I. Must be going, I suppose.”

“If you must,” Severus murmured, narrowing his eyes at her. He always saw too much, when Lucius could be so blind sometimes, and after a few minutes he placed a hand on her shoulder, turned her around to face him. “But we could be more than friends. We could be – something more.”

She laughed, a little wetly from tears. “You don’t know that. This is – unprofessional.”

“Professional went out the window the first time you called me a withered husk with more wrinkles than common sense,” Severus said dryly.

But – there had to be more. More reasons she had thought in her own head why she could not remain an employee while she crushed on both the employer and her charge. She was trying to go higher in her job. She needed to work longer hours. She was not a trained professional, to deal with Severus’s depression. This required a professional, something she was not. And she’d only heard one side of the story. And—

“You can only speak for—”

“Myself, and Lucius,” Severus interrupted smoothly. “Both of us. The three of us. Together.”

She scrubbed at her nose ineffectively, trying to minimize her tears and status by saying, “You are both old, older than I. What would you want with someone – this age?”

“Because you care, in your own no-nonsense way,” Lucius said easily, and she turned to see him standing there in the final doorway of the Ministry, waiting for her to accept what he was so readily offering.

And the same impulse that had her coming back the second day to Severus’s cottage struck her again, held her tight, and she swallowed hard. She didn’t think she would regret it, and even if she did, she could walk away. They’d need to learn to grow as a unit.

But she’d try.

(She never regretted it.)

 


End file.
